


The Truth of Modern Babysitting

by anakatieskywalker



Series: A Stranger World [7]
Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics)
Genre: Batfamily (DCU) Feels, Batfamily (DCU) Fluff, Dead Robins flock together, Gen, Jason Todd Deserves Better, Late Night Conversations, Past Stephanie Brown/Tim Drake, Smart Jason Todd, Stephanie Brown Tries, Stephanie Brown goes to college, Stephanie Brown is Batgirl, Stephanie Brown-centric, no editing we die like robins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:20:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24897583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anakatieskywalker/pseuds/anakatieskywalker
Summary: Steph had what would be considered a *slightly* unconventional childhood. It's not her fault that no one thought to ask before.Also known as, Steph had an interesting babysitter, she has way too much homework, and no one really knows what to do with unexpected information. Surprise.
Relationships: Stephanie Brown & Jason Todd
Series: A Stranger World [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/882144
Comments: 19
Kudos: 163





	The Truth of Modern Babysitting

Steph had just sat down to finally make some headway in her homework after patrol when there was a rap at her window. She glanced towards the noise, confusion furrowing her brows. Tim had said goodnight to her over the coms, and Cass was back in Hong Kong until further notice. Dick never dropped by Steph’s apartment, if she was honest, she was pretty sure he didn’t even know where she lived now.

The knock sounded again, and Steph crept along the edge of her living room, using the shadows to help conceal her. Needless to say, she felt ridiculous. What supervillain would wait and knock on her window at… _4:23am._

Sheesh, Steph tried not to think about how much coffee she was going to need in order to get through all of her classes later. No wonder no one else actually stuck with the college thing. The benders Steph had to pull off in order to complete her school work _and_ go on patrol were ridiculous.

Peeling back the sheer curtains she’d hung in hopes that it would make her apartment look more like a whimsical college girl’s residence instead of the messy home base of a nocturnal vigilante, she caught sight of the infamous second robin and let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

Steph reached up and unlatched the window, sliding it open enough that Jason could heave it up the rest of the way, and stepped back so as to not get trampled by a ridiculously built batboy. And no, that wasn’t just the sleep deprivation talking. She and Tim had come to an agreement a while ago that they needed to stop being each other’s emotional crutch and stick to being best friends. They both needed to figure out their own traumas and focus on the mission, so Steph was free to ogle at her ex’s adoptive siblings and anyone else in their vicinity without reproach. 

Well, without much reproach, Tim still gagged like a nine-year-old that believed in cooties anytime she mentioned liking the way some guy on campus looked. He practically dropped dead the one time she joked about how Dick looked in his spandex. (Though that was mostly to get his reaction on video. Dick looked nice and was a good guy, but his history with Babs put him firmly in the off limits area of Stephanie’s moral code.)

Once both of Jason’s feet were firmly on the laminate floors of her apartment, Steph deemed it okay for her to open her mouth. “What are you doing here so late?”

“Uh… I ran low on bandages at my safe house, figured Alfred and the Replacement would make sure that you had enough to prevent anyone from bleeding out, so…” a heavy silence fell over them, while Steph jerked her head in an aborted nod. “What are you still doing up?”

Almost like she was detached from her body, Steph gestured to her coffee table strewn with papers. “Homework. Ain’t no sleep for the in-debt college student.” She threw a smirk at Jason, before turning to fetch the first aid kit that he was right in assuming was overly stocked. 

“Jesus.” Jason’s response was so quiet, Steph was almost convinced she’d imagined it. She quickly returned with the first aid kit from her bathroom cabinet and cleared a space for it on the cluttered coffee table, before plopping back down in front of the drawings of organic molecules that she had just gotten started on.

Jason stood over her for a minute, not knowing what to do, before a duffle bag practically materialized in his hands, and he removed his helmet and other various pieces of armor. Steph could see a t-shirt, as well as a hoodie and some sweatpants inside the bag, and figured that this was probably going to become an impromptu sleepover for the two of them. 

She wasn’t opposed to the thought, but that didn’t stop the next set of words from tumbling out of her mouth. “That’s not the duffle bag that had all the heads in it, right?” _God, Cass would slap her upside the head if she could hear her now._

Unexpectedly, Jason snorted. “No, it’s a new one. I promise.” If Steph was being honest with herself, she liked the way his tone sounded so full of mirth, but she shoved the thought away and opted not to analyze it more. 

“Oh, good.” She ducked her head, returning to her drawings of halogenated alkanes.

For a while, the two of them worked side by side, enveloped in a neat silence that was only broken by the turning of the pages of Steph’s textbook and the occasional taping of bandages. 

She’d gotten through nearly ten of the problems due to her orgo professor the next day when Jason cleared his throat. “So, uh, how were you so good the other night? With the Riddler thing?”

Steph’s brow furrowed as she thought back, and then, _oh yeah._ She’d been stuck in a warehouse rigged with randomly dispersing fear toxin alongside Jason, Dick, and Cass, and they’d been tasked with solving a bunch of Riddler’s newest riddles in order to get out. Arguably, they were probably the least suited of the Batclan to be stuck in a trap with _solving riddles_ being the only way out.

“Oh, Eddie was my babysitter growing up.” 

“Really?” Steph glanced up to see the confusion on Jason’s face. Like he couldn’t quite picture it.

“Yeah, he was better at the whole kid thing than my actual dad, if you can believe that.” she snorted, thinking back to her father taking her to bars and leaving her in the corner, so that he could go off and gloat with his old pals without her mom getting mad at him. 

“He’d teach me about riddles whenever I didn’t have any homework. It was a lot cooler than any of the other babysitters I had.” A scowl crossed her face at the thought of her _other_ babysitters, and the two of them lapsed back into silence.

A few minutes later, Jason opened his mouth, “The girls on the corner were pretty much my babysitters, I guess.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Steph couldn’t help but ask, blinking like that video gamer meme guy.

“Yeah, you know, Crime Alley wasn’t really ripe with teenagers looking for babysitting gigs back in the day.” He continued as Steph snorted in amusement, “They were nice, sometimes they’d give me candy, always warned me about which shitholes I shouldn’t go near.”

“Wait, is that why the big bad Red Hood keeps an eye on the working girls? Because they gave him candy when he was just a baby?”

Jason’s blush reached his ears, “Shut up and do your homework. Don’t you have to get some sleep before class?”

She shrugged, “I mean I should, but I have to finish these drawings and edit my essay if going to college is even going to be worth it.”

He hummed, before gesturing in a ‘give me’ kind of motion. “What, you know how to do carbon drawings?”

“Oh fuck no, I died when I was fifteen. Give me the essay.”

A real laugh escaped Steph then, Jason’s death jokes really were funny, regardless of what the others thought. Reaching forward, she grabbed the stack of papers that were her most recent attempt at literary analysis of a book she’d only read half of, and shoved it towards the former Robin. 

They worked through the early hours of the morning, Jason only grumbling occasionally about her dismal writing _(which was a win, as far as Stephanie was concerned.)_

She woke up to the sun shining through her open curtains, a fully revised essay, and a takeout container of waffles – still warm. Jason was nowhere to be found. Steph dug into the gifted breakfast, before glancing at the clock and cursing. She ran around her apartment, collecting the necessities for another long day on campus, and burst out the door – one shoe still untied, and booked it to campus.

Later, when she was trying not to fall asleep in what had to be the most boring organic chemistry lecture to date, she thought about how her lit professor had actually praised some of her edits, and figured sleepovers with Jason were actually pretty great.

**Author's Note:**

> Yet again, I'm posting some writing when I should be studying. Someone, act surprised.
> 
> This doesn't have anything to do with the Justice League but its going into the same AU because ~*character development*~ shout out to Julie for helping me with this plot bubble, and shout out to my anatomy class for ending on a decent note. Now time to learn how the parts of the body do the things that they do.
> 
> Also yes this is yet another open ended piece, who knows when the second part will come? certainly not me.
> 
> And on a final note, stay safe and take care of yourselves. And drop me a comment so that I know what you thought of Steph going to college based on my own college experiences. Okay bye.


End file.
